Companies can store a tremendous amount of end-user data. Examples of end-user data include, but are not limited to, addresses, credit card information, photographs, e-mails, healthcare records, financial records, electronic documents, messages, associations with other end-users, and other types of information. Not only do the end-users have an expectation of privacy, but in many cases there can be legal requirements on the dissemination and use of the data. As a result, unauthorized access and/or use of the end-user's data can result in dissatisfied customers and potential legal liability.
Not only does the data need to be protected from unauthorized access external from the company, but also from unauthorized access internally (e.g., from employees). However, employees of the companies may need access to different data in order to perform their job (e.g., to resolve user issues). Traditional tools for allowing company employees access to end-user data do not typically dynamically allocate access to the data. Instead, each employee may have access to all of the data or to very large portions of the data. Moreover, these traditional tools typically do not provide any restrictions on how the data can be used once access has been granted to the tool. As such, there are a number of challenges and inefficiencies found in traditional tools for granting access to end-user data.